FIEC questions value of mobility package

The value of the first part of the Labour Mobility Package adopted by the European Commission this week is being questioned by FIEC (the European Construction Industry Federation).

It said that after a first assessment of the Labour Mobility Package, which it described as a targeted revision of the Posting Directive (96/71/EC), its real added value remained questionable.

Posting of workers is the moving of EU workers, on a temporary basis, from the Member State were they usually work to another Member State.

Before expressing an overall view on the Labour Mobility Package, FIEC said it would like to see which decisions would be taken in relation to the Social Security Regulation (883/2004/EC).

Although it admitted they were separate pieces of legislation, it said there were clear links and interactions between the two in the framework of the free provision of services.

FIEC added it was not demanding any modifications to the Posting Directive and, in a joint position with the EFBWW (European Federation of Building & Woodworkers), had proposed a number of practical proposals aimed at improving the current situation and avoiding abuses.

FIEC said such proposed measures could have been put in place without re-opening the Directive itself, thereby avoiding a political debate, which – both within the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers – it felt might divide the European Union further.

Following its first assessment of some of the proposed amendments, FIEC said it did not consider that the reference to remuneration, which was mainly intended to codify the case law of the European Court of Justice, would provide a real useful added value.

It also said that the impact of the provisions related to sub-contracting and their possible links with existing case law of the European Court of Justice needed to be checked carefully.

However, FIEC said that it considered that the clarification regarding the treatment of temporary agency workers in the case of posting, obliging the Member States to apply the same conditions to cross-border agencies as are applied to national ones, could effectively improve the situation in some Member States.

FIEC said it would participate in the forthcoming debates in a constructive manner and in co-operation with its social partner, the EFBWW, in order to ensure that a real level playing field for construction companies in the Single Market was effectively achieved.